Page 5 of Spyder
The door closes with a soft click, leaving me alone to take it all in. I look at the blank walls, just waiting for me to fill them with something, and can’t help but think it’s a metaphor for this new chapter in my life. It’s an unexpected new chapter, but it’s up to me to fill the pages with something good.
“So, let’s get to it.”
***
After spending a couple of hours in the classroom moving furniture around and getting it just how I want it, I call it a day. I’m going to have to dig through my boxes in the garage to find some of my old classroom decorations. But I’m also going to need to go shopping for some new things as well, which excites me.
There’s something about putting my classroom together that I’ve always enjoyed. I think it’s fun and it always symbolizes a new start for me. Of course, that new start usually comes at the end of summer, when I’m on the cusp of a new school year, with all new students, and not in the middle of a semester. But I can’t control the timing, and the idea of a new beginning is perhaps more relevant now than it’s ever been. I’m definitely not the same girl who left Blue Rock all those years ago, and my life today looks nothing like it did back then.
I close up the classroom and head out of the school. Ruby’s probably busy doing her “principal” things, so I figure I’ll just shoot her a text later. It’s getting late in the afternoon and I should probably head home, both to check on my mom and to start hauling the important classroom-type stuff out of the garage.
My head is in the clouds as I cross the parking lot that separates the junior high on one side and the grade school on the other. I’m almost to my car when a familiar voice stops me in my tracks.
“As I live and breathe, now, there’s a face I haven’t seen in ages,” he says.
I turn around to see Max Wise standing there. And much to my surprise, he’s got a young boy, maybe four or five with him, the child’s small, delicate hand in Max’s large, strong paw.
“Wow. Talk about a blast from the past,” I say. “How are you, Max?”
The boy standing beside Max looks up at me with a serious expression on his face. “Domino. His name is Domino.”
“Domino, huh?” I ask, thinking the boy’s nickname for him is cute.
“You can just call me Max. Ashley—this little one’s mom,” he says, ruffling the boy’s hair, “refuses to call me Domino.”
The boy darts behind Max’s legs and peeks around them at me, a shy but playful smile on his face. Max looks pretty much the same as he did back in high school. Although, he’s definitely matured and is very much a man now. He’s still lean but wide through the shoulders, and he’s sporting a neatly trimmed goatee he didn’t have before. The two white spots, one above his upper lip and one below his lower lip, obviously account for the kid’s nickname for him, since they actually look like pips on a domino.
He’s clean-cut but has a rugged, almost wild, and untamed look about him. He was always fit back in high school, but he looks even fitter now. He’s got a square jawline and eyes that glitter like emeralds. He’s a handsome man now that he’s all grown up. I had just never pegged him for the settle-down-and-have-a-family type.
“And where did you come by such a charming nickname?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Around. What are you doing back in town? Last I heard, you were somewhere over in Timbuktu or somethin’.”
I laugh. “Never made it to Africa.”
He cocks his head and looks at me, which makes me burst into laughter. He screws up his face and although he’s frowning at me, I can see that he’s not actually upset. Slightly embarrassed by his ignorance, perhaps. But not upset. We weren’t ever really good friends back in the day and never really hung out socially, but we had a couple of classes. We got along well enough. One thing about Max I remember well is that he’s not afraid to laugh at himself. More than that, I remember that he’s willing to stand up for people.
There was one time in an English class we had together, this was shortly after my dad had died so I was having a hard time of things anyway, that he made himself look like a fool, and he did it to protect me. I remember it so well because we had no connection, and we weren’t friends. Hell, at that point, we were barely acquaintances. But when I needed somebody to step up for me, he was there.
It was in the cafeteria one afternoon. I was already an emotional wreck, but when I dumped my cup of juice in my lap, I lost it. It looked like I’d wet myself. The uproar in the cafeteria, people laughing and pointing and making jokes at my expense, was deafening, and I was frozen. I just sat there with tears streaming down my face, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and none of my friends stood up for me. Not a single one of them.
But Max came over and sat down next to me, the whole cafeteria went silent as he poured a cup of juice on his own lap. He never said a word, he just looked at everybody standing around, silently daring them to laugh or say something. Anything. And of course, people were so afraid of him that nobody said a single word. In fact, the crowd drifted off and everybody went about their own business. I’m sure they were still making jokes about me, but I couldn’t hear them anymore.
The next day, when he walked by my table at lunch, he set a child’s sippy cup filled with juice in front of me. He never said a word, he just gave me a wink and a smile then walked away. My laughter filled the cafeteria, making people turn and look at me strangely. It was embarrassing, but the funniest thing to me, like… ever.
We still never hung out together after that. There was no overlap in our social circles. But I like to think that, in our own way, we were friends. We talked in class and whatnot, but that’s about it. Our connection was strong, but it was purely platonic. And he never tried to cross that line. I think maybe knowing I had something of a thing for one of his friends might have had a little something to do with it.
“Timbuktu is in Africa. Mali, to be precise,” I tell him.
“Oh, right. I knew that.”
“Uh-huh,” I say with a laugh.
“So, what are you doing back here, anyway?”
A frown pulls at the corners of my mouth as I feel the familiar heaviness settle about my heart, dragging me down. I don’t know that I should be telling him all this. Like I said, it’s not like we were besties or anything. We ran in different social circles, and his friends were all a bit rough around the edges.
But that was then, and this is now. Time moves on and the things that seemed important back then—things like social standing and what our friends thought—are no longer relevant. In fact, as I look back at all the things that I thought were important back then, I want to kick my own butt. It was all so stupid and superficial. We’re all grown now. Adults. And I don’t have to worry about being excommunicated from my social circle for talking to somebody like Max Wise any longer. The truth of it is, with some distance and perspective as an adult now, looking back on those years, I wish I would have been a different person. In a lot of different ways.
